person Matt Morris, two poems

Matt Morris is the author of Nearing Narcoma, winner of the Main Street Press Poetry Book Award, and Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, published by Knut House Press. His work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies.

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TINY AIRPORTS

The fog lifts. You glimpse
the wires holding up
the plane, scuffed wing
tips of angels who guide it along

peeking out from a cardboard
cut-out cloud—that dark
fat one, for instance,
following you. What

did you expect—whirring
propellers of some gray
puddle-jumping albatross
to glide across the sun’s

smiley button face? Up here
home is but a speck
on the glass, your career
even less significant—as if that’s

possible. The drunk
next to you wants to hold
hands for luck, but surely he
sees through the guise

of your humanity.
Way down below,
the runway sticks out its sleek
black tongue to taste

a metal snowflake.

\\

HERE’S HOW

To determine the area of the soul, you
must first convert the imaginary

into a real number equal to the sum
of your existence. You may need

a calculator to extrapolate your childhood
on the farm, dreaming in the corn-

field of purity & light, as an integer greater
or less than zero. Let x represent

the lance corporal on the redeye who
became the coefficient of your grief. Remember

to subtract your lost faith before
factoring in the depth of your Being.